Importance of Customer Self-Service: Examples and Benefits

Rewind 40 years and most gas stations in the United States had a pump attendant who would fill your vehicle for you, process the payment, and so on. Then came self-service options that enabled drivers to process a payment and fill the vehicle directly at the pump without the assistance of anyone else.

This enabled the station to save money by placing fewer employees on site, while customers were happier because they could fill up their vehicles sooner and get back on the road. That is a classic example of self-service. Another instance is an automated checkout line at the supermarket. Customers can now ring up their own items, place them in bags, and pay without any assistance from a store employee.

Again, the procedure becomes cheaper for the business and faster for the customer. Everyone from movie theaters and fast food restaurants to car rental companies and banks has implemented self-service as part of their larger strategy. But self-service isn’t limited to brick-and-mortar operations. Online companies use it, too. All you need are the right customer self-service software and strategies.

For customer service teams that are stretched thin, self-service automates simple issues like password resets, returns, or basic FAQs. A combination of AiseraGPT AI voice bot and conversational AI platform can free up support agents to focus on the tickets and problems that are more complicated and require greater attention and judgment, while still enabling customers to find knowledge-base articles to self-resolve issues.

Another benefit of self-service, particularly when enhanced with AI customer service, is that it’s scalable. Instead of having to increase overhead by hiring new customer service agents whenever the business grows (and having to replace them when they leave), you simply continue to use the solutions, including AI customer service, you have in place. Your margins actually get better over time.

In theory, a customer self-service portal might sound like a great option. The problem is that most businesses don’t take the trouble to set it up properly. As a result, the company compromises its efforts and damages its relationship with its customers. If you want customer self-service to succeed, you need the appropriate plan (and tools).

Most businesses understand the inherent value in offering self-service options to customers. The challenge is finding ways to implement it in a way that’s smooth, cost-effective, and positive for their patrons and leveraging service channels that customers prefer.

Here are several tips that may help you.

A knowledge base is a dedicated customer portal or resource where customers can go to obtain crucial information. Every knowledge base is different, but they typically include a combination of articles, PDFs, manuals, videos, instructional walkthroughs, checklists, and FAQ documents.

In order to create a knowledge base, you first have to know your customers’ biggest questions and pain points. Start with:

• What questions do customers most frequently ask the customer service agents about the product or service?
• Which department in your organization is most overwhelmed with customer issues and requests?
• Which customer service issues require the most attention from your team?
• What knowledge gaps could prove dangerous or costly if your customers don’t get answers?

Let the answers to these questions serve as the foundation for your knowledge base. It should and will grow over time, but this will give you a solid starting place.

Once you have knowledge management in place, it should be featured prominently on your website, in product manuals, as part of the packaging, on your social media profiles, and anywhere else customers might find it useful. You can have the most robust knowledge base in the industry, but it won’t do a lick of good if people aren’t aware of it and don’t know how to get to it.

Sometimes customers want a more engaging experience than just searching for a knowledge base. Self-customer service chatbots are a great way to service such people without overloading your human agents.

Aisera’s AI Customer Service Chatbot uses human intelligence, automation, and advanced workflows to serve customers without any human touch with live chat. It even connects with your existing tools and systems to leverage the data and content you already have on hand.

The result is improving customer metrics including (CSAT) and NPS scores, reduced service costs, improved agent experience, and healthier customer sentiment.

Contact center automation is another cost-effective self-service option that saves both time and money. If nothing else, you can use automation to direct the flow of calls to the right agents so customers can be served as quickly and efficiently as possible.

One of the keys to successful call center automation is to prioritize calls based on urgency. Much the way emergency room staff are trained to triage patients based on the severity of their symptoms, call center software can help you identify which customer calls require direct attention and which ones can be addressed using a combination of automation and knowledge base resources.

Most business owners have been told that you should make it as difficult as possible to cancel a membership, unsubscribe from an email, etc. After all, the more friction you insert, the more time there is for doubt to arise in the customer’s mind.

Right? Well … not exactly. While it’s true that you don’t want customers to be able to cancel on a whim, there’s something to be said for making it easy to do once they’ve reached that conclusion.

Otherwise, your customer service reps will be overloaded by these requests. If you make it easy for people to cancel, you’ll save time, and time is money. The key is to offer re-engagement email sequences simultaneously, and retargeting working in the background to encourage those folks to return.